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U.S. flu season gets strong early start

A weekly look at influenza across the USA

The level of flu activity -- high, moderate, low or minimal -- is an indication of what percentage of outpatient visits in a state are for a flulike illness, compared with months when there is no flu. A map for the week ending Feb. 23.

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This year's flu season is starting earlier and hitting harder than it has in almost a decade, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"This is at least a month earlier than we would generally see the beginning of the uptick in cases," said CDC director Thomas Frieden.

The flu strains circulating in the United States this year, especially the N3N2 strain, tend to cause more severe disease as well, he said. The good news is that this year's flu vaccine is a 90% match for the circulating strains. "So we're particularly encouraging people who haven't been vaccinated to do it," he said.

One of the signals CDC uses to indicate the official start of flu season is when more than 2.2% of all visits to the doctor nationwide are for flu-like illnesses. In non-flu months such as the summer, about 1% of doctor visits are for flu-like illnesses. As of last week the nation had reached that 2.2% threshold, said Scott Epperson with CDCs Influenza division.

Currently "elevated" levels of flu-like illnesses have been found in five of 10 regions of the USA, according to CDC's FluView survey.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas experienced what were considered high flu numbers, the CDC said. Much of the Midwest also was seeing elevated numbers. Nationally, the percentage of respiratory tests found to be positive for the flu virus during the week ending Nov. 24 rose to 15.2% -- relatively elevated for this time of year, the CDC said.

The percentage of deaths from pneumonia and flu was 6.3% for the week, below what the CDC considers an epidemic rate of 6.7%. No new pediatric flu deaths were reported, and only two have been reported thus far this season.

So far approximately 112 million Americans have been vaccinated, and it's expected that 135 million doses of vaccine will be produced total this year, so there shouldn't be any vaccine shortages, said Frieden.

To keep you and others from getting the flu this year, Frieden offers this advice: